ITABoK

IT Architect Body of Knowledge – v2

Overview

The Information Technology Architecture Body of Knowledge (ITABoK) has been developed from the experience and practice of individual and corporate members.

In addition to being a reference, a knowledge base and a list of professional capabilities, the ITABoK is meant to be essential in implementing an architecture practice within an organization, without significant changes to other standards, roles, practices and lifecycles. An architecture practice provides high levels of value in both business and technical strategy, and that value can be measured as a contribution to the organization. Architecture is appropriate and essential for extremely small businesses, as well as, the largest businesses in the world, including non-profit, government, and defense.

The ITABoK is first and foremost intended for individual practicing architects, though it does include significant portions dedicated to organizational excellence. It is meant as a people framework as opposed to a process, methodology or standard. It is meant to be the living body of knowledge for the practice of an architect attempting to fulfill their duty to their customer or employer. While Iasa includes corporate examples and concerns, the ITABoK must be useful by the independent practitioner and must assume that a single architect is as important as a group of architects. In addition, the ITABoK must be consistent and useful at any degree of scale, regardless of the number of architects involved in the endeavor, whether that be the delivery of a global fortune 100 business strategy or the delivery of a single solution for a small business.

The ITABoK is inclusive of all specializations, sub-specializations and career levels of the architect profession. Although the title includes the terms information technology, the content has been written by keeping business, enterprise, solutions, software, information and infrastructure architects and their derivations in mind. Practitioners from each of these specializations continue to help in the development and maintenance of the body of knowledge.

What is Architecture According to the ITABoK

Architecture at Iasa is the practice of business, organization or client gain through the application of technology strategy. It is the art and science of designing and delivering valuable technology strategy. The BoK describes this as business technology strategy, which forms the primary pillar of the 5 pillars of architecture skill. Other words Iasa uses to describe this are innovation, ideation, and value management. At its core, the ITABoK describes how to create a professional person or group of professionals who can consistently find new applications of technology to generate positive outcomes for their client or employer.

The ITABoK provides a reference point for a particular type of architect and may not fit all titled or non-titled definitions. Iasa has long been aware that some architects focus on the development of models as their primary concern, using designs to aid in governance, understanding a business or optimization of an information technology group. Some architects claim they are designing or engineering an entire enterprise. All of these activities are beneficial. However, the ITABoK is focused on developing a profession of architect where practitioners fulfill all or most of the following throughout their career:

Retain depth in technical skill as well as business skill

Able to successfully work with both business and technical staff

Develop their own or others business cases based on technology driven innovation

Retain the ability to deliver projects on those business cases, generally at increasing levels of complexity

Deliver business projects more successfully based on outcomes than others

Are committed to the identification of repeatability in business technology outcomes

Are as much an artists as scientists

Simply put, the ITABoK is the body of knowledge for professional innovators.

The ITABoK provides the following components.

Capability Guidebook – detailed guide to the professions skill set

Engagement Model – the organization and interaction of one or more architects and their client or employer

Career Path Management Guide – the steps it takes to become an professional architect and tools for employing them

CAPABILITY GUIDEBOOK

The capability guidebook is an industry reference model for architects skills and competencies. It provides a comprehensive taxonomy of skills which must be gained by an individual who would like to become an architect. Each capability is described in depth with reference to industry knowledge, experience levels which map to career path milestones, learning objectives and experience guidelines. In addition it contains reference guides for and mappings to academic progression, employment and existing industry frameworks maintained by other organizations.